Power Line Management

LiDAR is an effective way of mapping existing powerlines and the surrounding terrain features, vegetation, building and other structures.

Power line corridors are often in areas not easily accessible and therefore, the corridors may be difficult to survey. A LiDAR system operating from a low altitude airborne platform has no difficulties accessing and surveying even the roughest terrain quickly, cost-effectively, and without putting people at risk. It provides accurate position information of wires, structures, vegetation and the ground along the power line corridor.

Terrasolid software offers tools for matching the flight lines, classifying the laser points, modeling the ground based on classified points, and vectorizing the wires, attachmetns and towers. The vector data can be integrated into professional software and thus, used in performing thermal capacity studies, analyzing rebuild/reconductor projects, and generating as-built records.

Vegetation or other objects in and near the power line corridor can be detected from the laser point cloud by a TerraScan classification routine. The information about so-called "danger objects" is usefull to monitor the safety clearance area around the power line. Thus, with maps that display danger object location, a team can be sent into the field to remove, for example, the vegetation before it damages the power line by growing too close to wires, falling into the wires during storms or causing "flashovers" during forest fires.

With TerraModeler you can derive a surface model of the ground from the laser point cloud of the corridor and observe slopes vulnerable to erosion and determine the impact on the power line. With an accurate wire-to-ground information derived from LiDAR data by TerraScan the operators of heavy machinery can be guided to not bring down the wires or danger themselves by contact with high voltage wires.